I recently bought a cheap box of Hat 28mm French Chasseur Command figures. I’d previously steered clear of their 28mm miniatures due to the lack of detail present. Whilst their smaller 20mm scale models are beautiful, I don’t think their larger 28mm cousins look as good. However, looking at their website, the upcoming Spanish 28mm models do look rather nice!
Nevertheless, as I had this box I wanted to make use of them in my French army. Unfortunately, next to my Victrix and Perry miniatures they look underfed and at least a good ‘foot’ shorter than their fellow compatriots. Victrix do make the tallest 28mm models on the market though!
28mm French Comparisons. From left to right: Perry, Hat and Victrix.
In the box were 8 standing light infantry, 4 mounted commanders, 4 buglers, 4 drummers, 4 NCO’s, 4 standard bearers and 4 Sappers. Taking a look at the sprues, the Sappers were the best of the lot. The rest just seemed to look a bit feeble in comparison to my other troops.
So, what to do with these guys? The 8 standing troops would supplement any future rank and files troops (albeit standing on plasticard ‘boxes’ to increase their height, the Sappers would of course be welcome to join the current army. Now….what to do with the rest of the models….thinking cap on. Conversions are on the horizon I think.
Napoleonictonic 
I recently started using the HAT Arabs for Iberian medieval additions and they fit nicely with Perry and gripping beast, but I do like variation in my units. The Bavarians are quite close also to Perry miniatures.
Hi Matthew. Cheers for the message. Your comment took my by surprise…not so much the content of your message, but just the fact that this blog has been dormant since 2019 (2015 was really the last time I properly used it). :0)
Glad you found a use for your HAT miniatures. Great idea too :0). I did eventually find a use for the Napoleonic HAT minis, you can see what I did with them when I created a marching band – see ‘The Sound of Drums – 17e léger Musicians’ https://napoleonictonic.wordpress.com/category/peninsular-war-french-28mm/17e-leger-marching-band/
Gotta thank you Matthew, just by posting your message, you’ve inspired me. I’ve been using Instagram for my hobby stuff for past couple of years, but these old retro blogs do remain intact online (not like Instagram etc where its harder for people to keep track of your projects/older posts). So, I’ll keep this blog (Napoleonictonic.wordpress.com) alive along with my other blog (moosebosh.wordpress.com).
Happy New Year to you too and all the best.